![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_cover.jpg)
History
IBM 4704 administrative keyboard a.k.a the Pingmaster is one of the most iconic vintage keyboards out there. After chasing it for over a year, I finally managed to acquire one.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_numpad.jpg)
The earliest appearance of the board was around 1983. In western markets, the IBM 4704 terminal came bundled with a 107-key Capacitive buckling spring keyboard. In Asian markets, it used to be sold with an Alps corporation-made keyboard with Chinese or Japanese legends. This model is a Chinese variant, and it was primarily sold in the Chinese market.
This board got attention among the vintage community when one person started selling a bunch of these NOS boards for cheap. They first sold the Japanese ones and then the Chinese. I believe this board came from that stock.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_back.jpg)
Build and features
The keyboard body is made of Plastic with a really nice grainy texture. It has thick Doubleshot ABS keycaps and a bunch of relegendables.
This keyboard has Alps SKCC green switches. These switches are infamous for being quite pingy, & hence the name “Pingmaster”. Alps SKCC green has the lowest weight among other SKCC switches, around 60 grams of force.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_switches.jpg)
The board has exactly 33 relegendable keycaps, and the Numpad is in the middle section instead of being on the right. However, I switched that to have a more modern look.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_numpad_modern.jpg)
The whole board has only one wire stabilizer, You guessed it right, it is
the Spacebar. Other larger caps such as Shift
and bottom Enter
have
stabilizer inserts instead of a wire stabilizer.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_stabilizers.jpg)
The back of the PCB was covered by a layer of unknown material probably aluminum, I couldn’t say for sure.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_pcb_back.jpg)
This board comes with a beeper/speaker that beeps every time a switch is actuated, I find it immensely interesting and funny. I doubt whether my co-workers would appreciate such a feature. The speaker is mounted on a speaker grill on the bottom case.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_beeper.jpg)
Another interesting feature is that the board has a scroll wheel to adjust the volume, and it gets quite loud when turned up 100%. The speaker produces a white static noise that is barely noticeable.
Conversion
Luckily the previous owner of the board included a Hasu converter with the package. However, they forgot to declare it in the customs invoice while shipping, and that led to a 30 days customs holdup and 50$ fine.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_hasu_converter.jpg)
The converter was already flashed and worked when I plugged it in. I used TMK(Written by Hasu) to reprogram it to a more personally layout. Here are the instructions I followed to reprogram it.
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_layout_layer01.png)
![](/images/keyboards/ibm_pingmaster/ibm_pingmaster_layout_layer02.png)
Epilogue
This is one of my toughest acquisitions so far, and I couldn’t be happier. The keyboard delivers and is one of the finest boards I have in my collection.